coquettish beauty, than a fat, good-humoured Austrian dame, always called Madame la Comtesse, because her German name was unpronounceable, and without whom the Queen never stirred, and lastly a little figure, rounded yet slight, slender yet soft and plump, with a kitten-like alertness and grace of motion, as she sprang out, collected the Queen’s properties of fan, kerchief, pouncet-box, mantle, &c., and disappeared in to the chateau, without Berenger’s being sure of anything but that her little black hat had a rose-coloured feather in it.
The Queen was led to a chair placed under one of the largest trees, and there Charles presented to her such of his gentlemen as she was not yet acquainted with, the Baron de Ribaumont among the rest.
‘I have heard of M. de Ribaumont,’ she said, in a tone that made the colour mantle in his fair cheek; and with a sign of her hand she detained him at her side till the King had strolled away with Madame la Sauve, and no one remained near but her German countess. Then changing her tone to one of confidence, which the high-bred homeliness of her Austrian manner rendered inexpressibly engaging, she said, ‘I must apologize, Monsieur, for the giddiness of my sister-in-law, which I fear caused you some embarrassment.’
‘Ah, Madame,’ said Berenger, kneeling on one knee as she addressed him, and his heart bounding with wild, undefined hope, ‘I cannot be grateful enough. It was that which led to my being undeceived.’
‘It was true, then, that you were mistaken?’ said the Queen.
‘Treacherously deceived, Madame, by those whose interest it is to keep us apart,’ said Berenger, colouring with indignation; ‘they imposed my other cousin on me as my wife, and caused her to think me cruelly neglectful.’
‘I know,’ said the Queen. ‘Yet Mdlle. de Ribaumont is far more admired than my little blackbird.’
‘That may be, Madame, but not by me.’
‘Yet is it true that you came to break off the marriage?’
‘Yes, Madame,’ said Berenger, honestly, ‘but I had not seen her.’
‘And now?’ said the Queen, smiling.
‘I would rather die than give her up,’ said Berenger. ‘Oh, Madame, help us of your grace. Every one is trying to part us, every one is arguing against us, but she is my own true wedded wife, and if you will but give her to me, all will be well.’
‘I like you, M. de Ribaumont,’ said the Queen, looking him full in the face. ‘You are like our own honest Germans at my home, and I think you mean all you say. I had much rather my dear little Nid de Merle were with you than left here, to become like all the others. She is a good little Liegling,—how do you call it in French? She has told me all, and truly I would help you with all my heart, but it is not as if I were the Queen-mother. You must have recourse to the King, who loves you well, and at my request included you in the hunting-party.’
Berenger could only kiss her hand in token of earnest thanks before the repast was announced, and the King came to lead her to the table spread beneath the trees. The whole party supped together, but Berenger could have only a distant view of his little wife, looking very demure and grave by the side of the Admiral.
But when the meal was ended, there was a loitering in the woodland paths, amid healthy openings or glades trimmed into discreet wildness fit for royal rusticity; the sun set in parting glory on one horizon, the moon rising in crimson majesty on the other. A musician at intervals touched the guitar, and sang Spanish or Italian airs, whose soft or quaint melody came dreamily through the trees. Then it was that with beating heart Berenger stole up to the maiden as she stood behind the Queen, and ventured to whisper her name and clasp her hand.
She turned, their eyes met, and she let him lead her apart into the wood. It was not like a lover’s tryst, it was more like the continuation of their old childish terms, only that he treated her as a thing of his own, that he was bound to secure and to guard, and she received him as her own lawful but tardy protector, to be treated with perfect reliance but with a certain playful resentment.
‘You will not run away from me now,’ he said, making full prize of her hand and arm.
‘Ah! is not she the dearest and best of queens?’ and the large eyes were lifted up to him in such frank seeking of sympathy that he could see into the depths of their clear darkness.
‘It is her doing then. Though, Eustacie, when I knew the truth, not flood nor fire should keep me long from you, my heart, my love, my wife.’
‘What! wife in spite of those villainous letter?’ she said, trying to pout.
‘Wife for ever, inseparably! Only you must be able to swear that you knew nothing of the one that brought me here.’
‘Poor me! No, indeed! There was Celine carried off at fourteen, Madame de Blanchet a bride at fifteen; all marrying hither and thither; and I—’ she pulled a face irresistibly droll—‘I growing old enough to dress St. Catherine’s hair, and wondering where was M. le Baron.’
‘They thought me too young,’ said Berenger, ‘to take on me the cares of life.’
‘So they were left to me?’
‘Cares! What cares have you but finding the Queen’s fan?’
‘Little you know!’ she said, half contemptuous, half mortified.
‘Nay, pardon me, ma mie. Who has troubled you?’
‘Ah! you would call it nothing to be beset by Narcisse; to be told one’s husband is faithless, till one half believes it; to be looked at by ugly eyes; to be liable to be teased any day by Monsieur, or worse, by that mocking ape, M. d’Alecon, and to have nobody who can or will hinder it.’
She was sobbing by this time, and he exclaimed, ‘Ah, would that I could revenge all! Never, never shall it be again! What blessed grace has guarded you through all?’
‘Did I not belong to you?’ she said exultingly. ‘And had not Sister Monique, yes, and M. le Baron, striven hard to make me good? Ah, how kind he was!’
‘My father? Yes, Eustacie, he loved you to the last. He bade me, on his deathbed, give you his own Book of Psalms, and tell you he had always loved and prayed for you.’
‘Ah! his Psalms! I shall love them! Even at Bellaise, when first we came there, we used to sing them, but the Mother Abbess went out visiting, and when she came back she said they were heretical. And Soeur Monique would not let me say the texts he taught me, but I WOULD not forget them. I say them often in my heart.’
‘Then,’ he cried joyfully, ‘you will willingly embrace my religion?’
‘Be a Huguenot?’ she said distastefully.
‘I am not precisely a Huguenot; I do not love them,’ he answered hastily; ‘but all shall be made clear to you at my home in England.’
‘England!’ she said. ‘Must we live in England? Away from every one?’
‘Ah, they will love so much! I shall make you so happy there,’ he answered. ‘There you will see what it is to be true and trustworthy.’
‘I had rather live at Chateau Leurre, or my own Nid de Merle,’ she replied. ‘There I should see Soeur Monique, and my aunt, the Abbess, and we would have the peasants to dance in the castle court. Oh! if you could but see the orchards at Le Bocage, you would never want to go away. And we could come now and then to see my dear Queen.
‘I am glad at least you would not live at court.’
‘Oh, no, I have been more unhappy here than ever I knew could be borne.’
And a very few words from him drew out all that had happened to her since they parted. Her father had sent her to Bellaise, a convent founded by the first of the Angevin branch, which was presided over by his sister, and where Diane was also educated. The good sister Monique had been mistress of the pensionnaires, and had evidently